Undisclosed Desires
by bethaboo
Summary: Edward, a vampire lonely and isolated by his very existence, meets Isabella Swan, a human who is nothing like what he expects. He decides to pursue her, but she has an agenda of her own. Twilight AU.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: This is the first chapter of the story I wrote for chloe9, the winner of my third Support Stacie Auction. She requested that I write an AU of Twilight, and so I've written my own version--basically, what I would have done differently if I was Stephenie Meyer. The first 1,000 or so words of this are actually directly Stephenie Meyer's, and the change comes after the first line, and it's fairly obvious.**

**The story is named for the song by Muse, and I suggest you listen to it at least once--it complements the song amazingly well, and I've used lyrics from the song at the beginning of each chapter.**

**Thanks to my awesome beta, Trinity, and also to Chloe9, who was such a fantastically patient reader :)**

* * *

_"I know you've suffered, but I don't want you to hide._

_It's cold and loveless;_

_I won't let you be denied."_

EPOV

This was the time of day when I wished I were able to sleep.

High school.

Or was purgatory the right word? If there _was _any way to atone for my sins, this ought to count toward the tally in some measure. The tedium was not something I grew used to; every day seemed more impossibly monotonous than the last.

I suppose this _was _my form of sleep—if sleep was defined as the inert state between active periods.

I stared at the cracks running through the plaster in the far corner of the cafeteria, imagining patterns into them that were not there. It was one way to tune out the voices that babbled like the gush of a river inside my head.

Several hundred of these voices I ignored out of boredom.

When it came to the human mind, I'd heard it all before and then some. Today, all thoughts were consumed with the trivial drama of a new addition to the small student body here. It took so little to work them all up. I'd seen the new face repeated in thought after thought from every angle. Just an ordinary human girl. The excitement over her arrival was tiresomely predictable—like flashing a shiny object at a child. Half the sheep-like males were already imagining themselves in love with her, just because she was something new to look at. I tried harder to tune them out.

Only four voices did I block out of courtesy rather than distaste: my family, my two brothers and two sisters, who were so used to the lack of privacy in my presence that they rarely gave it a thought. I gave them what privacy I could. I tried not to listen if I could help it.

Try as I may, still... I knew.

Rosalie was thinking, as usual, about herself. She'd caught sight of her profile in the reflection off someone's glasses, and she was mulling over her own perfection. Rosalie's mind was a shallow pool with few surprises.

Emmett was fuming over a wrestling match he'd lost to Jasper during the night. It would take all his limited patience to make it to the end of the school day to orchestrate a rematch. I never felt really intrusive hearing Emmett's thoughts, because he never thought one thing that he would not say aloud or put into action. Perhaps I only felt guilty reading the others' minds because I knew there were things that they wouldn't want me to know. If Rosalie's mind was a shallow pool, then Emmett's was a lake with no shadows, glass clear.

And Jasper was... suffering. I suppressed a sigh.

_Edward_. Alice called my name in her head, and had my attention at once.

It was just the same as having my name called aloud. I was glad my given name had fallen out of style lately—it had been annoying; anytime anyone thought of any Edward, my head would turn automatically...

My head didn't turn now. Alice and I were good at these private conversations. It was rare that anyone caught us. I kept my eyes on the lines in the plaster.

_How is he holding up?_ she asked me.

I frowned, just a small change in the set of my mouth. Nothing that would tip the others off. I could easily be frowning out of boredom.

Alice's mental tone was alarmed now, and I saw in her mind that she was watching Jasper in her peripheral vision. _Is there any danger? _She searched ahead, into the immediate future, skimming through visions of monotony for the source behind my frown.

I turned my head slowly to the left, as if looking at the bricks of the wall, sighed, and then to the right, back to the cracks in the ceiling. Only Alice knew I was shaking my head.

She relaxed._ Let me know if it gets too bad_.

Edward Cullen.

Reflex reaction. I turned to the sound of my name being called, though it wasn't being called, just thought.

My eyes locked for a small portion of a second with a pair of wide, chocolate-brown human eyes set in a pale, heart-shaped face. I knew the face, though I'd never seen it myself before this moment. It had been foremost in every human head today. The new student, Isabella Swan. Daughter of the town's chief of police, brought to live here by some new custody situation. Bella. She'd corrected everyone who'd used her full name today...

"Jessica Stanley is giving the new Swan girl all the dirty laundry on the Cullen clan," I murmured to Emmett as a distraction.

He chuckled under his breath. _I hope she's making it good, _he thought.

"Rather unimaginative, actually. Just the barest hint of scandal. Not an ounce of horror. I'm a little disappointed."

_And the new girl? Is she disappointed in the gossip as well?_

I listened to hear what this new girl, Bella, thought of Jessica's story. What did she see when she looked at the strange, chalky-skinned family that was universally avoided?

I heard nothing, though I listened close beside where Jessica's frivolous internal monologue continued to gush. It was as if there was no one sitting beside her. How peculiar, had the girl moved? That didn't seem likely, as Jessica was still babbling to her. I looked up to check, feeling off-balance. Checking on what my extra 'hearing" could tell me—it wasn't something I ever had to do.

Again, my gaze locked on those same wide brown eyes. She was sitting right where she had been before, and looking at us, a natural thing to be doing, I supposed, as Jessica was still regaling her with the local gossip about the Cullens.

Thinking about us, too, would be natural.

But I couldn't hear a whisper.

Inviting warm stained her cheeks as she looked down, away from the embarrassing gaffe of getting caught staring at a stranger.

The emotions had been as clear on her face as if they were spelled out in words across her forehead: surprise, as she unknowingly absorbed the signs of the subtle differences between her kind and mine, curiosity, as she listened to Jessica's tale, and something more... fascination? It wouldn't be the first time. We were beautiful to them, our intended prey. Then, finally, embarrassment as I caught her staring at me.

And yet, though her thoughts had been so clear in her odd eyes—odd, because of the depth to them; brown eyes often seemed flat in their darkness—I could hear nothing but silence from the place she was sitting. Nothing at all.

I felt a moment of unease.

This was nothing I'd encountered before. Was there something wrong with me? I felt exactly the same as I always had. Worried, I listened harder.

It was unbelievably frustrating! I could clearly see that it was a strain for her to sit there, to make conversation with strangers, to be the center of attention I could sense her shyness from the way she held her frail-looking shoulders, slightly hunched, as if she was expecting a rebuff at any moment. And yet I could only sense, could only see, could only imagine. There was nothing but silence from the very unexceptional human girl. I could hear nothing. Why?

"Shall we?" Rosalie murmured, interrupting my focus.

I looked away from the girl with a sense of relief. I didn't want to continue to fail at this—it irritated me. And I didn't want to develop any interest in her hidden thoughts simply because they were hidden from me. No doubt, when I did decipher her thoughts—and I _would _find a way to do so—they would be just as petty and trivial as any human's thoughts. Not worth the effort I would expend to reach them.

We got up from the table and walked out of the cafeteria.

Emmett, Rosalie and Jasper were pretending to be seniors; they left for their classes. I was playing a younger role than they. I headed off for my junior level biology class, preparing my mind for the tedium. It was doubtful Mr. Banner, a man of no more than average intellect, would manage to pull out anything in his lecture that would surprise someone holding two graduate degrees in medicine.

In the classroom, I settled into my chair and let my books—props again; they held nothing I didn't already know—spill across the table. I was the only student who had a table to himself. The humans weren't smart enough to _know _that they feared me, but their survival instincts were enough to keep them away.

The room slowly filled as they trickled in from lunch. I leaned back in my chair and waited for the time to pass. Again, I wished I was able to sleep.

Because I'd been thinking about her, when Angela Weber escorted the new girl through the door, her name intruded on my attention.

Still, from the place where Bella Swan stood, nothing. The empty space where her thoughts should be irritated and unnerved me.

She came closer, walking down the aisle beside me to get to the teacher's desk. Poor girl; the seat next to me was the only one available. Automatically, I cleared what would be her side of the desk, shoving my books into a pile. I doubted she would feel very comfortable there. She was in for a long semester—in this class, at least. Perhaps, though, sitting beside her, I'd be able to flush out her secrets... not that I'd ever needed closer proximity before... not that I would find anything worth listening to...

* * *

Isabella sat down, rather clumsily, the chair sliding back with a curdling screech on the cracked linoleum. She looked up with a blush on her cheeks, aware, no doubt, that the entire classroom was intently focused on her.

Her backpack flopped on floor next to her chair and she dragged out a notebook and a pencil. She toyed with the lead end for a second before sweeping her long brown hair back, exposing the white, nearly translucent skin of her neck to my gaze for the first time.

I tensed, waiting for the thirst to inevitably hit, but instead... _nothing_. My throat remained dry, but not parched, and the venom that seemed to pool so easily with every other human didn't fill my mouth.

Just as the intricacies of her mind were closed to me, the only smell rising from her was the faint scent of freesia and strawberry--as if my vampire senses were hyper aware only of the outer packaging of Bella Swan, not the blood pumping through her veins.

She turned and smiled me, and I was still so struck dumb by my body's numb reaction to her that I could only gape instead. Frowning at my response, she turned back to the pad in front of her with a little shake of her head. It was almost as if... she was _disgusted _at my unfriendliness. Not because of what I was--she couldn't possibly know; could she?--but instead at how rude she thought me. I closed my eyes and let the scent of her waft over me, determined to discover exactly _what _Isabella Swan was.

She couldn't possibly be human. Not without the scent of her blood permeating my senses. I could smell every other human's blood in this room--twenty or so individual variations on the same theme--but Bella's body was as closed to me as her mind. She wasn't vampire either, or werewolf, or any of the other various mystical creatures I'd encountered over the years. The only possibility was that she _had _to be something otherworldly that I had yet to encounter.

And then I realized, every muscle in my body tensing for flight, she could be something dangerous.

_Edward. _My head rose at the sound of my sister's voice in my head. I could see the flash of her face in the window of the door. Alice had seen something important. I _had _to get out of here before Isabella--if that was even her name--decided to attack me.

I rose to my feet, interrupting Mr. Banner's droning introduction to rudimentary cellular biology, my haste causing the chair to clatter backwards just as Isabella's had. The room was abuzz with thought as to what I'd be doing leaving in the middle of class, and if it had anything to do with the new girl. Oh, they had _no _idea, I thought darkly.

"Sir," I said courteously, "I find I feel rather... ill. May I be excused?"

I could feel, rather than hear, the disapproval and disdain radiating off of the girl sitting next to me. As I packed my books, and hastily retreated out of the classroom with none of my usual grace, I didn't have to read thoughts to know that Bella was shooting dagger-like glares into my back.

Alice was waiting for me in the hallway, her expression impatient. "Took you long enough," she said snippily. "I've been waiting forever."

"Thirty seconds," I reasoned, as I searched her mind. She let me in easily, unfolding the visions to me as they'd been shown to her.

I stopped and she turned to face me, a smug smile on her face. "She's _human_? You're certain?"

Alice nodded. "It's almost as if... she's _protected._"

"Protected from a vampire..." The very idea seemed far-fetched to me, but perhaps Carlisle had heard of this phenomenon during his long sojourn with the Volturri.

_Not just a vampire... _I heard only the first fragment of the thought before Alice clamped down and I was abruptly lost in a Russian to French translation of _War and Peace_.

"Alice," I grumbled, annoyed that she was blocking me on something so important.

"It's nothing," she said lightly. "Go back to class. She won't hurt you. She's harmless."

It was hard to believe that, but Alice _was _the expert here. If Isabella Swan had come to Forks to cause harm to me or the Cullen family, she would have seen it.

I walked back to Mr. Banner's classroom, and took in his surprised expression when I opened the door.

"Recovered so quickly, Edward?"

"Oh yes, Mr. Banner," I said with as much charm as I could muster. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Bella Swan's reaction to my sudden recovery was a roll of her eyes.

I again sat next to Isabella, who pointedly refused to look at me, despite that I smiled at her. I heard Jessica Stanley internally grumble that she'd tried to get me to look at her for _months_, and that Isabella had managed it in one day--and on top of that, she wasn't even _grateful_. Her vitriol continued, but I blocked it out as best as I could.

Mr. Banner continued his mind-numbing treatise on cell forms, and normally I would have taken this opportunity to again fall into a sleep-like stupor, but today, with this unique creature sitting next to me, I was instead instinctively fascinated by her presence.

I'm sure if Isabella knew that I was expending my not-inconsiderable sense of smell to discover if I could detect even a hint of her blood, she would have been appalled. As it was, she already seemed more than a little annoyed at me. She kept moving her chair closer to the walkway, until finally, the front leg slammed into the desk with a metallic thud that echoed throughout the classroom. Isabella glanced up, a rather predictable flush staining her cheeks at her obvious attempt to get as far away from me as possible. In any other situation, I would have figured that her disease would have everything to do with reality of what I was, but in Isabella's case, the dirty looks she kept shooting me from under the cover of that long mahogany hair, that she just plain didn't like me.

It was becoming painfully obvious, even with the blocking ability I'd developed over decades of practice, that every human in the class was focused not on Mr. Banner and his stimulating lecture, but instead on the power struggle currently occurring between my deskmate and I. Jessica Stanley was spewing more mental hatred in the direction of Isabella--wondering, more than once, _why _any woman would want to move _away _from me. Jessica had already had several fantasies of what she would do if she was in Isabella's place; I barely managed to control my shudder of disgust as I heard the tail-end of the latest one.

Mike Newton was full of indignant anger. He didn't understand why after so long of abstaining from the collective game of girl-hopping, I'd finally decided to take an interest. He believed that it was rather unfair, and that I should give the rest of the boys in the school a sporting chance. Not being the most observant creature on the planet, he'd decided that Bella's apparent abhorrence of me would quickly fade under the onslaught of my charm.

I almost chuckled; the little bubble of laughter nearly escaping more because of my own surprise that it existed, rather than a lack of self-control. I couldn't even _remember _the last time I'd laughed. Human thoughts very rarely held anything of interest, nonetheless anything resembling humor. But, the situation between Isabella and I definitely held a piquancy that could be amusing.

Here was the one human I'd encountered in almost eighty years that I couldn't smell or hear, and so was safe territory, but she apparently loathed me on sight. Though I'd long since dismissed it as uninteresting, I decided that irony _could _be intriguing, in the right scenario.

Isabella hunched over the desk, apparently aware of my interest, and doing anything she could to dissuade it. Her notebook was open in front of her, and she was scribbling away furiously in it. Somehow, I doubted that the drivel that Mr. Banner was currently spouting was of such interest that she was determined to capture every word of it. Thus, I concluded, she was writing something else.

I angled my chair backwards, attempting to penetrate the shield of hair that Isabella used to hide her notebook from my sight, but I still could not see it. She kept it absolutely hidden, yet her pen scratched over the pages with remarkable consistency and rhythm. She was not taking notes, clearly, but instead was transcribing something that flowed from her thoughts effortlessly.

The secret, I thought with sudden clarity, lay in the notebook--in the pages she filled with her words. I had to see it; had to know if the fascination of Isabella ended with her shielded mind and body, or if she miraculously possessed something more than the mediocre and mundane thoughts of every other human I'd ever encountered.

However, it wasn't just the words pouring from her that fascinated me. I was completely unmanned at how pleasant a human could smell when I wasn't in agony of the scent of their blood. I found as I studied her, out of the corner of my eye, that she was also lovely. She wasn't stunning like Rosalie or ethereal like Alice--but then they'd had a bit of help in that department--instead, Isabella was beautiful in her imperfections. Her hair had a beautiful sheen of mahogany, almost like the finish of one of Esme's favorite antique dressers, and her features were delicately formed with just the slightest of human irregularities.

I wondered if I would have even looked twice at Isabella Swan if she hadn't been so unique, and decided that no, I would have ignored and dismissed her like every other human. Still, I was dying to understand her thoughts--if the silence of her mind was hiding something vastly interesting or if she was just quiet through a quirk of nature.

But before I could attempt to penetrate the defenses of that long hair, the bell rang, releasing me from the strangest hour I'd spent in decades. Isabella shot to her feet, managing to collect her bag and get to the door before the rest of us even awoke from the normal biology stupor. Just like that, she was gone, from my sight, and the brief respite I'd enjoyed from the regular thirst ended. I was beginning to understand how quickly I could shift from finding Isabella intriguing to something else entirely. Being with her would be a completely unique experience. I found most vampires too predatory for normal friendships. The Denali coven, while technically vegetarian like us, was still a trifle too animalistic for my tastes--especially the woman, Tanya, who hated taking no for an answer. I'd somewhat resigned myself to being alone for a long, long time, if not forever, when suddenly and unexpectedly, a solution had presented itself. Isabella, with her closed mind and shielded blood, could potentially very interesting indeed.

The rest of the day passed in the normal blur of already-learned information and furious mental speculation about what made Isabella Swan so incredibly unique.

After school, the four of us returned to the house and while Alice told Esme what had occurred, I paced in my room, waiting for Carlisle to come home from the hospital so I could interrogate him about his past experience with humans such as Isabella.

Carlisle came straight up to my room as soon as he arrived. He was still wearing his white lab coat, the starch as crisp and new as if he'd just shrugged it on. "You are saying," he said with amazement in his voice, "that you could not smell her?"

I shook my head. "The scent of her blood was totally closed to me. And Alice was sure she was human."

Carlisle looked just as confused as I felt. "Perhaps it _is _true then. She is protected from those such as us. Her mind is blocked, as is her body."

His thoughts revealed that he was hiding nothing--in fact, he was interested in examining the girl, if only on a purely medical level. _Perhaps, _he mused inwardly, _there is some protective charm in her skin_.

"No," I snapped, surprising my father. "Don't approach her."

"Edward, please. I would not. You know this." His voice was firm with reprimand, and I fell silent. He continued. "I know this girl... _intrigues_ you... and this is perfectly understandable. But I must caution you--human or not, she is not to be _used_ because of the protection she carries."

In that moment, I understood how Mike Newton had felt today in Biology. My new toy, shiny and fresh from the packaging, was being snatched away unceremoniously, after it had been dangled in front of my greedy eyes. I tried to tell myself that Carlisle understood the difficulties inherent in being alone--after all, he himself had been alone for more than two hundred years before he'd found Esme. But, on the other hand, he had never had to endure a houseful of sexually active vampires coupled with the ability to hear every single lewd thought. I wanted, for the first time in my life, to be the one on the _inside_, instead of perpetually being forced to sit outside and stare through the window at the happy, warm couples that were beyond my reach.

"I am not forbidding you from interacting with her, of course," Carlisle added hastily. "Within reason, feel free to speak to her, interact with her. I would be interested in seeing what you could learn about her. Knowledge is always useful."

The issue with this, I thought after Carlisle had left, was that my motives for befriending Isabella Swan were not precisely scientific in nature. I'd seen a light at the end of a dark, endless tunnel, and it was going to take discovering something truly horrific in her personality to dissuade me from exploring it. As much as I hated to admit it, I'd been alone for what seemed like forever, and faced with the possibility of Isabella, there was no way I could resist exploring her.


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: I'm so excited at the awesome positive response for chapter 1! Here's chapter two (of four total, in case you were wondering). Lyrics are from Muse, the song "Undisclosed Desires."**

**Thanks to Trinity for the beta and to chloe9 for purchasing me in the Support Stacie Auction and requesting this story :)**

**

* * *

**

_"Soothing, I'll make you feel pure;_

_Trust me, you can be sure."_

BPOV

Edward Cullen was just plain creepy.

The first time I'd seen him—in the cafeteria, when our eyes had met briefly, and I'd been so embarrassed he'd caught me staring—I'd understood instaneously why both Jessica and Lauren had been so eager to dish on him. He was undeniably gorgeous, with a mysterious aloof beauty that females of every age no doubt ate up. But, after his strange behavior in Biology, I wasn't sure what to make of him at all. After his odd interruption, he'd returned, so quickly it was obvious he'd been lying about being sick, and had proceeded to _stare _at me for the rest of the period—like I held the cure for cancer, or something.

I'd been half-tempted to look right up into those weird gold eyes and tell him that his attention was clearly misplaced; I wanted nothing to do with him. At least, that was what I told myself. There was no use in being hot if you were clearly socially deficient.

He'd stared intently, until it seemed as if he was literally counting the hairs on my head or the pores in my skin. Such close supervision was not only disturbing, it was totally unwelcome. I was used to flying under the radar and I liked it that way. Starting school at Forks High had come with enough unwanted attention; Edward Cullen was the straw that broke the camel's back.

So that night, as Charlie and I sat at our regular table at the diner, I broached the subject to him. The kids at school had seemed so in awe of the Cullen family; I wanted to know if I was the only one who found their aloofness weirdly disturbing.

It turned out that yes, I _was_ the only one.

"The Cullens?" Charlie said, between bites of meatloaf and mashed potatoes. "What about them?"

"Well, you know, are they ever in trouble?" I asked casually, pushing a fry into the mound of ketchup on my plate.

Charlie shook his head. "Never. Not a speck. Those Cullens are good kids. And their dad is Dr. Cullen, who works at the hospital. A big fancy, city doctor." Charlie's voice had the exact same kind of awe that Lauren and Jessica and Mike and Eric had when they spoke of the Cullens. It appeared that I was the only one who found them pretty damn weird.

"Why do you ask?" Charlie said, his gaze narrowing. "Did they make trouble for you?"

I hesitated. On one hand, I desperately wanted to confide my suspicions about Edward in someone, but I had a strong feeling that anything I would say would get immediately dismissed. After all, he really hadn't done anything. Yet, anyway. So I shook my head, and went back to my gardenburger.

Charlie started rattling off about some wild animal who had killed a man up at the power plant, and I spaced off, staring into space while I only pretended to listen.

Tuesday morning dawned and even though Biology was after lunch, I was already dreading it. Hopefully, Edward would just leave me alone.

Except, standing just inside the door, clearly expecting me, was the man himself.

"Good morning, my name is Edward Cullen; you must be Isabella. It's lovely to meet you," he said courteously, crossing to me and taking my books from my arms before I could even open my mouth to tell him off.

"What do you think you're doing?" I spluttered, my annoyance growing. Naturally, he was stuck up with a huge ego and would just _assume _that I wanted him to carry my books. Or that I wanted him around at all, which I didn't.

And what kind of a weirdo carried a girl's books to class anyway? Had we time-traveled and somehow I'd missed it?

I decided to ask him.

"What, are you a fan of historical literature? Bronte? Austen?" We were walking down the hallway, and if I wasn't totally mistaken, we were definitely being stared at. I supposed I shouldn't be surprised. After all, Jessica _had _said that Edward hadn't ever been interested in a girl from around here. I was the first—if he was even interested in me. But then, there didn't seem to be another explanation for this sudden behavioral reverse.

"I do enjoy those authors; though my sister Alice and my mother Esme are more partial than I." He spoke cautiously, with a strangely stilted formality that confused the hell out of me. Though, I had to add, it only added fuel to the fire of my curiosity. There was definitely something up with Edward and his family, and I was beginning to think it was going to be up to me to figure out what it was.

"What _do _you enjoy reading?" I turned the question neatly back to him, expecting to see him fumble and drop the ball because of the experience he supposedly didn't have with the opposite sex.

"I enjoy non-fiction. Historical biographies, typically. Occasionally, Shakespeare." Instead, however, Edward caught me off-guard by being suave, charming and incredibly self-assured; worst of all, those golden eyes didn't seem quite as weird as they had only the day before.

"I like Shakespeare too," I mumbled, my face flushing bright, traffic light red—suddenly and completely embarrassed that this beautiful boy was paying attention to me. Because he _definitely _was, and now that it was no longer just an amusing game, I was fumbling and gauche. Like always.

I was usually cool and detached and uncaring until someone showed a genuine, _real _interest, and then I tended to fall on my face. Unfortunately, Edward did actually seem genuinely intrigued by me.

"What else do you enjoy?" His voice was disgustingly polite as we navigated through the halls that I felt my throat almost closing over. I briefly considered saying something awful to him, just so he'd leave me to my socially awkward misery, but I didn't know if I could even get an insult out.

"Austen. Bronte. Hawthorne." I settled for last names, not sure if I could have manage any more than that, and luckily for me, we'd reached my first class. I wasn't sure if I should be relieved that we'd reached our destination or creeped out that Edward had known which room History was held in.

"This has been lovely, Isabella," Edward said politely, opening the door to my classroom with one hand and gently passing me my books with the other. "Have a wonderful day, and I look forward to seeing you in Biology."

Before I could even splutter that I would _not _look forward to seeing his creepy, stalker ass in Biology, he was gone, melted into the crowded hallway. I glanced into the sea of people, instinctively searching for his distinctive reddish-brown head before I even realized what I was doing. _You don't care that he left, Bella_, I ordered myself, _he's nothing to you_, _just another annoying boy who you'll have to force to take no for an answer._

Still, Edward trailed through my thoughts most of my morning classes, surfacing always at the most inopportune moments, until by lunch, I was nearly ready to tell him off for being such a distraction.

Nearly.

I still wasn't sure I could put an actual sentence together now that he had showed such a marked interest. The pathological shyness I'd always felt around men, starting at the beginning of puberty, had bothered me at first, but by now, my junior year of high school, I'd come to terms with it. I wasn't really interested in love or romance, anyway, unlike so many of my contemporaries. Let Lauren and Jessica obsess over the Edward Cullens and the Mike Newtons of the world, I reasoned, I was going to do something bigger and brighter and much more ambitious. Love faded, this I knew from my own parent's long-dead marriage, but words, those were eternal.

I briefly considered not even going to the cafeteria and instead, camping out in the bathroom, hunched over my notebook, working out a neat bit of dialogue, but as much as the possibility of Edward approaching me was inherently terrifying, a tiny part of me hated the idea of altering my own schedule to avoid him. So I went to lunch as planned, sitting with Angela and Ben and Eric, hoping that nobody would actually talk to me.

It was funny, I reasoned, that I could say so much on paper, but so little out loud. It was as if faced with the idea of speaking, my normally-fertile mind would dry up completely, until only disjointed mumblings tumbled from my lips. The kids in Phoenix thought I was a cross between the Unabomber and an idiot savant. The constant black hoody I wore, regardless of Phoenix's sweltering temperatures, probably didn't do much to dispel either of those notions, but I had always been on the thin side and therefore had a tendency to be cold, even on the hottest day. In Forks, Washington, one of the coldest, rainiest locales in North America, a parka probably wouldn't have been enough—but I bore it because I'd made my choice.

As it happened, the sun broke just before lunch, and as I walked to the usual table, I was able to unzip my sweatshirt partially. I set my tray down, glancing down briefly at the unappetizing slop they called food, before finally letting my gaze drift to the Cullen table. But strangely, it was unoccupied.

Jessica must have seen the direction of my brief glance, because I heard her distinctive sniff from behind me. I turned and caught her in the act of sneering. Flustered, she sat down next to me, her face now re-arranged into a somewhat pleasanter expression.

"On sunny days, the Cullens always go outdoors... you know, with their parents. Hiking, camping, blah, blah, blah. So they're gone for the day."

"Really?" I found this exceedingly odd. The more I found out about the Cullens, the less inclined I was to think that they were at all like a normal family. I was becoming torn between wanting to avoid them (and Edward) completely and wanting to get closer, so I could figure out what it was exactly that made them so inherently different.

Jessica sent me a single, pitying glance from under her lashes. "I'm surprised Edward didn't tell you himself. You know, when he walked you to class this morning." I was sure it must have taken a monumental effort on her part, but the level of venom in her voice was much lower than I'd been anticipating.

But I'd spent much of third period devising a good excuse for why Edward Cullen had walked me to class—other than the obvious reason, that is. It was going to be bad enough to endure Edward's attention before he learned that I was absolutely _not _interested; having to endure Jessica and Lauren's catty bitchiness as well would be more than I could handle.

"We were discussing the English assignment," I said casually, as if this happened every day. "_Romeo and Juliet._"

As I'd suspected, the interest faded from Jessica's eyes, and she looked almost relieved at my revelation. No doubt the idea that Edward Cullen might be interested in me and not her had thrown the cosmic balance of her universe seriously out of whack.

Like Jessica had predicted, Edward was a no-show in Biology. I told myself that I was supremely relieved not to have to deal with him after all, but his absence when he'd so _specifically _promised he'd see me in class rankled. I decided I didn't like people who made promises that they didn't keep—whether I wanted them to keep the promise or not.

The next day, rain descended again on the Peninsula, and I half-expected to see Edward Cullen waiting, as he had the morning before, to walk me to class. I dreaded it, but I prepared myself regardless. But he wasn't there, and I breathed a silent sigh of relief when he wasn't there—but then Alice Cullen, his younger sister, was also absent, and as I walked into the cafeteria at lunch, it was obvious that the entire family was gone today. My relief faded into an irritable sense of unease. I didn't want to wait to settle this _thing _between Edward and I. I wanted to finish it _now_.

That evening, Charlie asked me to drive out to the reservation and drop off some tools that he'd borrowed from Billy, his old friend who lived out at La Push. It was raining again, in hard, relentless sheets, and by the time I set out, it was almost dark and the weather was only growing worse. I waited as long as I could to leave, imagining that Charlie would call any minute, telling me to forget about it since the road conditions were sure to worsen, but finally, I bundled up and trekked out to my old, beat up truck, deciding that it would be better to just to get the trip over with.

I drove even more cautiously than usual, even though the tires on my truck were new. The roads were slick and icy, the rain beginning to mix with sleet as I reached the highway that wound through the forest and led to the La Push reservation. But despite my defensive driving, as I took one particularly sharp corner, I felt my truck shudder and begin to skid, the tires screeching as they tried to grip the slippery pavement. In horrible slow motion, I saw the world whip around me in three hundred and sixty degrees, before I finally slid off the road and into a ditch.

With a trembling hand, I reached out to turn off the truck, and instantly the inside of my truck was silent—so silent that I could hear my short panting gasps for air in the cold, dark cabin, and the uneven pattern of my heartbeat.

I reached for my cell phone, which had slid off the seat and onto the floor during my skid off the road.

"Damn," I muttered, my voice unnaturally loud in the silence, as I realized that out here, in the middle of nowhere between La Push and Forks, I had no service.

I sat for a minute, trying to figure out what to do. Should I get out of the truck and figure out how bad of a situation I was in? Was there any way I could afford to stay _inside_? I glanced out the window, eyeing the sleet with trepidation, but I knew I didn't have a choice. I zipped up my coat as far as it would go, until the zipper was digging into the skin under my chin, and pulled my gloves and hat.

Feeling recklessly brave, if even for a moment, I wrenched open the door and gasped at the cold air as it hit me. I staggered out of the truck, and instantly almost slipped on the mud lining the ditch, before righting myself by grabbing onto the door handle and surveying the situation I'd found myself in.

It didn't look good. I didn't know much about how to get a truck out of a ditch, but from what I could see, I didn't think that gunning the engine would do much good. It seemed as if I was just going to have to abandon the truck, walk further up the road in the storm, until my cell phone could get service again. Then I'd call Billy and Jacob and get them to come pull me out.

My plan decided on, I opened the truck door and grabbed an extra blanket I kept in there for emergencies. It wouldn't do much to keep me warm, but it would keep the rain out, at least for a little while. My teeth were already chattering—with the cold or with just plain terror, I wasn't sure. Fishing my maglite out of the glovebox, I shut the truck door and climbed up out of the ditch.

I'd only taken a few steps before I heard it. The sound of an engine, tuned to an inch of its life and humming beautifully. I turned and squinted my eyes against the rain, pointing my tiny flashlight in the direction I'd just come from.

High beams cut through the gloom, and my breath caught in my throat as I saw a flash of silver, like one of the trout that Charlie liked to catch in the streams around Forks. Before I even had a good look at the car, I knew who it was. It was just my luck, I thought with rising panic, that it would be him who would catch me, out here alone, in the dark and the rain. _Edward Cullen_.

Any thoughts I'd had that he might not see me or might not stop evaporated when the Volvo came to a smooth, clean, effortless stop on the shoulder just behind my poor, stranded truck. I glanced at my cell phone; unfortunately it still read "no service." I slid it back into my pocket and looked back up to see Edward get out of his car, not even flinching at the driving rain that hit his bare head. He was dressed in only a wool pea coat, but he wasn't even shivering as he walked towards me, his expression concerned.

"Isabella, are you alright?" His voice carried over the rhythmic patter of the rain on the asphalt as he walked towards me, his stride casual, as if we weren't meeting on an abandoned stretch of highway in the middle of a rainstorm.

"I'm fine," I said, trying and failing to keep the annoyed edge out of my voice. Of all the people who had to drive by, it just _had _to be him. Desperately I wanted to tell him to leave, that I would take care of this on my own, without his interference—or help, as he'd probably call it—but I knew I needed him. And I _hated _that obligation.

"Do you need some help?" he asked, stopping in front of me.

If we'd met face-to-face in the high school hallway, under normal, regular circumstances, the challenge in his eyes would have sent me into stammering hell. Here, on the side of the road, in the godforsaken middle of nowhere, with sleet pouring down on me, I decided to hell with embarrassment.

"What do you think?" I asked snidely, as I gestured to my truck's current location in the ditch.

"I think you're in a bad situation." Edward seemed to have an endless reserve of polite patience, but mine was quickly shredding.

"You're very observant. Now what do you propose to do about it?"

"I'm assuming your phone doesn't work," Edward said and I nodded in response. "So that means it's up to us to get you out of the ditch."

"Up to you, you mean," I corrected him. "I'm not sure I can actually help."

"Oh, I think I'll be able to manage just fine," Edward said with what I thought might have been a hint of a smile on his face. "Pushing you out shouldn't be a problem."

I rolled my eyes. His certainty was certainly a symptom of a rather healthy ego. Edward took a step closer, and I was reminded, again, of how truly alone we were. The rain splattered off his white face, rivulets of water trickling down the features that looked as if they'd been carved from marble. He didn't even blink the water away, just stared at me, as if I'd just done something completely and totally unexpected.

"So that's the plan, then?" I asked impatiently, clenching my teeth together so they wouldn't chatter as I spoke. I couldn't ever remembering being so cold and wet and utterly miserable, but there was something in his expression, in those weirdly golden eyes, that warmed me, deep down somewhere I hadn't known could catch fire.

"Just get in the truck and hit the gas when I tell you to." He turned away abruptly, breaking eye contact, and working his way through the mud towards the back of the truck.

I opened the car door and started the engine. Thankfully it roared to life, and swearing under my breath at the necessity of communication, I cranked the window lever down. Rain fell into the cabin in sheets, but I didn't have the necessary energy left to care. All I wanted was to strip off my wet clothes and crawl into bed.

"Pedal!" Edward's voice echoed loudly and I jammed on the gas. I'd been sure that Edward wouldn't be able to get me out of the ditch, no matter how strong his wiry body looked, but to my surprise, it only took one shove from him, and I was suddenly sitting on the road, clear of the muddy pit, and Edward was there, leaning inside the driver's window.

"Well, you're free," he said, nonchalantly, as if he hadn't just performed a completely superhuman feat.

"How did you do that?" I spluttered, completely forgetting my manners in the midst of my confusion.

"You weren't that stuck," he said, still pleasantly, with the tiniest hint of a smile on his face. "It wasn't too difficult to push you out."

He leaned in a bit further, his elbows resting on the window ledge. "You'd better get going and change your clothes. You're pale. Freezing." Absentmindedly, he reached up and stroked my wet cheek, his fingers as cold as they looked, and I shivered, suddenly mesmerized by mysterious boy in front of me.

"Thank you," I whispered, the words rising out of my throat without thinking. There was no stutter, no embarrassment, no secret, hideous fear. I didn't understand Edward Cullen at all, but somehow, in this moment, he didn't frighten me as he should. And I knew, deep down, that he _should_.

I couldn't sleep that night, even after a hot shower, and wrapping myself in layers of blankets. I was finally warm, but my mind buzzed with questions. What was Edward? How was that he'd pushed my hopelessly stuck truck so easily? It would have normally taken several men to extricate it—of that I was sure. And why hadn't I been afraid of him, the instant he showed his true colors?

The next day, I expected to see him waiting for me near the entrance as he'd done before, but he didn't show. I tried to tell myself that I was relieved, but I knew I wasn't. Instead, I was puzzled and maybe even a little disappointed. Edward was fascinating.

I was waiting in line for my plastic-tasting ham sandwich at lunch when I heard a distinctive high, light voice sound behind me. Alice Cullen.

"Bella?" Alice sounded unsure, as if she wasn't sure I'd actually give her the time of day.

I turned to face her, feeling as inadequate as I'd ever felt in my whole life. Some of the girls in Phoenix had been spent all of their time and energy dressing and grooming themselves, making sure that every eye, both male and female, focused on them. Alice Cullen, on the other hand, drew everyone's gaze effortlessly. I hated fashion but I knew her outfit was flawless—as was Alice herself.

"Hello." I glanced down at the floor, scuffing the toe of my black converse on the dirty linoleum. Maybe if I didn't look at her, she'd go away. Of course, these techniques worked on guys, but I'd never had to try them on a girl before. Most females my age took one look at my shaggy hair, my black hoodies and jeans and left me alone with no effort on my part.

"I'm Alice Cullen." She'd shifted from uncertain to a sweet charm that disarmed me enough that I even managed to glance up. Weird. She had the same odd golden eyes as her brother, but hadn't Jessica told me that they were adopted siblings? Or was Alice actually Edward's brother? I couldn't remember the details.

"Nice to meet you," I mumbled. I wanted to ask her what the hell she wanted from me, even if it was obvious that she was here to talk to me about her brother, not to be friendly.

"Would you like to sit with me at lunch?" She gestured towards the slowly filling cafeteria.

"With you?" I asked suspiciously.

"Well," she amended with a tiny, tinkling laugh, "my family, actually."

I opened my mouth to tell her that _no, thank you_, the last thing I wanted to do was have lunch with her stalker of a brother, who I wouldn't be interested in if he was the last man on earth. Well, I thought, that wasn't exactly true. If I was able to actually converse with a man who was interested in me and who I was interested in, I would probably choose Edward Cullen. He was undeniably handsome, well-spoken, intelligent, and there was something about the way his eyes followed me that was distinctly unsettling in a good way.

But that changed nothing. I couldn't possibly have lunch with him, even if Alice and the rest of the Cullen clan was present. I would be a tongue-tied disaster, and would consequently feel so humiliated that I'd have to move back to Phoenix.

"Don't say no," Alice said, stopping me before I could say it myself. "You're going to say no—I can tell by the expression on your face. Do you not like Edward? Is it too soon?"

I looked into her eyes, those eyes that reminded me so much of Edward, and I hesitated. Suddenly, I wanted to tell her. Alice was warm, friendly, and strangely, non-threatening, despite the thousands of dollars of clothes she was undoubtedly wearing.

"I... I can't sit with your family," I stuttered, but plowed forward, determined to try to get the words out, "but I could sit with you."


	3. Chapter 3

**AN: Again, this story was written for chloe9, who was my winner in the September '09 Support Stacie Auction. Thanks to my beta, Trinity.**

**

* * *

**

**Chapter 3**

_"You trick your lovers_

_that you're wicked and divine._

_You may be a sinner,_

_but your innocence is mine." _

EPOV

Alice disappeared with Isabella at lunch, and I didn't see either of them after they'd left. I'd been looking forward to really talking to Isabella before Biology, trying to figure out what made her tick, so I could get under her skin the same way she'd gotten under mine.

And Isabella undeniably had. I was desperate to know what was going through her mind, desperate to know what she thought of me, thought of _everything_. She'd been so charmingly, sweetly reticent when we'd talked before class yesterday, and I'd been desperate to talk to her more, to discover the reams of words she wrote while we were in class together, but then the sun had emerged and we'd had to leave the school before Biology.

I wondered if Isabella knew I'd followed her when she left her house alone and drove in the rainstorm into the forest. I'd known that there were all kinds of possibility for trouble, so I'd hung back, the Volvo hugging the icy curves safely, waiting to see if she would need my help. And she had, just as Alice had said she would.

Something had happened between us out in the forest, in the rain, as we'd stared each other. I didn't understand what had prompted me to reach out and brush her cheek, and even though it had been nearly frozen from the falling sleet, I'd felt the sluggish pump of her warm blood just under the surface, and I almost felt my own heart start beating in tandem.

Isabella had shown more of a fire and a fierceness than I'd ever seen before. There hadn't been a single blush and she'd faced me head on, even though I was sure her mind was full of questions. I wasn't sure what exactly was going on between us, but I knew I was more intrigued by the dualistic natures of Isabella Swan than ever. I wanted to see the sarcasm flash in her eyes again; I wanted to make her smile and laugh, and I even wanted to see her flush as I tied her tongue into knots.

Alice had suggested that today, she approach Isabella, befriend her. She was afraid, I supposed, that I could possibly come on too strong. And being Alice, she was likely right. After all, I was the 107 year old virgin, the Cullen man with zero experience with the fairer sex. I had no idea what I was doing and the last thing I wanted was to scare her off with my eagerness. It had been less than 3 days since I'd first seen Isabella Swan, and even though this was the tiniest drop in the bucket when you had an eternity, I knew enough to be sure that she was the only chance on the horizon for me to experience some semblance of a human relationship.

I hadn't even allowed myself to hope before now that such a thing could ever be possible, but now, with Isabella, I suddenly had hope.

I walked into Biology entirely not sure what I would find waiting for me, after Bella had spent the last hour with my capricious and ever-unpredictable sister. Isabella was sitting at our desk, her head bent down, the shiny brown mass of her hair falling almost completely over the desk, shielding from view her notebook, which she was scribbling in furiously.

"Good afternoon, Isabella," I said politely, glad that my voice gave no indication of how truly frazzled and unsure I was.

Truthfully, I wasn't even sure if she would answer me. After all, she'd given absolutely no indication that she'd even noticed me come in and sit down next to her. Maybe, I thought with dismay, I should have tried to find Alice before class started, so I could at least have some idea of where I stood with the puzzling creature next to me. But to my surprise, at my greeting, she straightened and turned, brushing away a little of the hair that hung in her face. I still couldn't see all of it, and even though I spent most of my time with three of the most beautiful women any man had ever seen, my breath still caught in my throat.

There was something so undeniably innocent and incredibly pure about the white line of her throat, and the curve of her cheek. Something so _alive_ and _warm_. It was wondrous that I could sit this close to her, to the blood pumping through her veins, and not be in an agony of thirst. There was still danger, I knew, because she was just as breakable as any other human, but without the hideous temptation of her blood, she was the safest girl I'd ever encountered. Isabella was, I realized, my miracle. My one lucky card in one hundred and seven years of bad hands.

"Good afternoon, Edward." She stammered a little, her voice wavering as she struggled to hold my gaze. The hand on the desk next to me was trembling, and it was then I realized something else; Isabella was terrified to talk to me, and not for any of the usual reasons that humans feared us. All Isabella knew was that I was a man, and I was obviously interested in her.

Whatever Alice had said, though, it was enough that Isabella was willing to try, when she hadn't been very inclined to before. This, I thought, the hope rising inside me, was a step in the right direction.

"Did you have a nice hiking trip?"

Isabella's eyes were brimming with anxiety and the fear that I'd find her boring or silly or ridiculous or that I'd laugh at the words she chose. What could I do, I wondered, to convince her that I instinctively knew that she was wrong?

"I did, but I would rather have been here, in Biology." Alice had counseled that honesty was always the best policy with women, and I decided to try it. After all, it was inescapably true; I much rather would have been in Biology, no matter how boring the subject, watching as the fluorescent lights lit her velvety skin and brought out the reddish highlights in her hair than observing as Emmett took down yet another bear. Not to mention, I could have tried to distract her for long enough to catch a glimpse of what she wrote so feverishly. Such desperation to get the words down on paper must, I'd decided, communicate how deeply important they were to Isabella, and anything that was important to her was automatically important to me.

Such direct honesty, though, was clearly not what Isabella was expecting. She turned away, her skin flushing bright red, the blood pumping effortlessly beneath her fragile, porcelain skin. Any other human, and the venom would be filling my mouth, my throat parched with thirst, but with Isabella, I experienced nothing.

I waited for another moment, wondering if she would say anything or if she would just leave my statement hanging in the air. Finally, I heard her barely mumble, "But this class is boring."

That it was. Isabella knew it; I knew it. The whole class knew it. I waited another moment, hoping she would give me some indication that she'd understood exactly what I'd meant. Truthfully, it had been many, many years since I'd been in suspense as to anyone's reaction. Her silence was a double-edged sword—it injected an automatic sense of surprise and novelty into any conversation I had with Isabella, yet I also found it terrifying to understand so little of what went on in that mysterious head of hers.

Isabella blushed harder (if that was even possible) and she nodded, almost imperceptibly. That would have to be enough—for now. "What are you writing?" I asked, knowing she wouldn't tell me, but wanting her to understand just how much I wished to know her.

She shrugged, her fingernail running over the edge of the closed journal. My mouth didn't water at the blood that pulsed through her veins, but instead at the secrets that lay benignly only inches away from my fingertips. I was desperate to read her words, to drink in the hidden thoughts and desires of Isabella Swan.

Like I'd surmised even before asking, she wasn't going to tell me. I wondered if Alice knew, but decided that it was unlikely that the subject had even come up. I hadn't confessed to my family the obsession I was developing over Isabella's journal—the ridicule I'd endured over my obsession with the girl had been annoying enough.

Mr. Banner walked into the classroom, greeted his students and began to drone on about the latest elementary subject, and I tuned him out as usual. I had to stem my disappointment as Bella again turned away from me, her hair falling between us, shielding my vision from the journal she had again surreptitiously opened. I could hear the scratch of the pen as the words flowed from her mind and I nearly ground my teeth in frustration.

The last decades had not conditioned me to accept the existence of secrets. I _had _to know what she was writing. And as I sat there, tuning out Mr. Banner and the other thirty minds in the room, I devised a plan.

Alice was waiting for me after school, standing by the Volvo, her mind full of _War and Peace_.

"Can't you find another book to recite?" I asked testily, annoyed that Alice was doing the best she could to block both the present and the future.

"I like this one; it annoys you especially," Alice chirped, sounding way too cheerful at the prospect of annoying me.

"Where are Jasper and Rosalie?" I asked, changing the subject. In our family, only Carlisle had a greater control of his thoughts; if Alice did not want me to see her conversation with Bella or know her visions of the future, I had little chance of gleaning anything from her mind.

"They left early."

"Again? We'll get a reputation as delinquents."

Alice chuckled, and slid into the Volvo. I started the engine, and we drove in silence.

"Aren't you even going to counsel me against going?" I asked her, not taking my eyes from the road to glance over at my sister.

She shrugged casually, as if my question mattered very little to her. I knew better than to think that her _laissez-faire _attitude had anything to do with my question. Alice, after all, could be an exceptional manipulator.

"I take it that it's safe then."

"I wouldn't send you into a dangerous situation, Edward," Alice said patiently, her voice even and calm. My grip tightened on the steering wheel, and I let go just before I left imprints in the leather.

"Of course." My tone mirrored hers, but inside I was seething with frustration. Alice knew how this would all turn out—she'd _seen _it, and she was purposefully letting me do this completely on my own. I might muck it up; in fact, it was highly likely that I would. Isabella was shy and high strung and hesitant under the best of circumstances and I knew enough to know that I was hardly the best circumstances.

I'd been expecting Alice to persuade me against the plan I'd formed, at the very least. At most, I'd expected her to argue and maybe even tell Jasper and Emmett, so I could be stopped. I'd never imagined that she would just let me do what I wanted.

"You're an adult, Edward," Alice said ever-so-reasonably. "You're in charge of your own actions."

I waited impatiently for dark to come, and then for the town to grow silent, tucked away in their beds for the night—for _Isabella _to be tucked away in her bed for the night. When I was sure it was safe, I laid down the biography on Robert Schumann I'd been reading and opened the window, landing on my feet effortlessly.

In less than a minute, even taking extra precautions, I was outside Isabella Swan's window.

_Get in, _I told myself, _and get out_. No need to linger, to observe, to watch as she slept. All I wanted were the thoughts that she hid so close to her chest.

Luckily for me, there was a convenient tree outside her window. I climbed up and slowly, silently slid open her window. To my surprise, it wasn't locked. Even though a simple window lock wouldn't have meant the end of the plan, the fact that it was unlocked did make it alarmingly easy to break into her room. I wondered if it was really safe for her to be so unprotected, so vulnerable, and I briefly considered letting Charlie Swan know that he should check his daughter's window, then decided against it. I'd only sound like a stalker or a Peeping Tom.

Isabella was sleeping soundly, curled around her pillow, her breaths unnaturally loud in the quiet room. I glanced around, wanting to focus only on finding the journal and not on the girl lying on the bed, but like she'd done from day one, Isabella distracted me.

With the fear and embarrassment she typically wore on her face gone, she looked strangely peaceful as she slept. I drifted closer, even as warning alarms detonated in my head. This was not what I had come for, but I couldn't seem to stop myself from reaching out and brushing a single strand of hair away from her face.

"Hmmmm," Isabella murmured, burrowing deeper into her pillow. I deduced that she must be one of those humans who spoke during their sleep, narrating their dreams. I began to turn away, my eyes sweeping through the darkened room, searching for the familiar brown cover of Isabella's journal, but her next words shook me to the core.

"Edward... _Edward_..." she mumbled. I stumbled backwards, wondering if I had heard her incorrectly. She had said _my _name. Very little shocked me anymore—after all, I had heard both the best and worst of humanity, but Isabella continually astonished me.

I wondered if this was what Alice had seen and this was why she hadn't discouraged me from coming here tonight. Perhaps she'd wanted me to understand that though the face that Isabella presented to me was one of distrust and near distaste, in fact she felt much differently.

Despite that I was desperate to stay all night and hear just what else Isabella said about me in her dreams, I knew it wasn't safe. I had to do my search and leave. Again, I glanced around the room, my eyes searching through piles of books and papers, even more desperate than before to read Isabella's thoughts.

But my desperation didn't translate to actually discovering Isabella's journal. I searched for the next ten minutes, riffling first through the backpack on the floor and then through the books on the table next to the bed, listening to the quiet murmur of Isabella's voice.

She had stopped saying my name and had reverted back to the incomprehensible sounds she'd made earlier, but I didn't mind—the memory of her saying my name would be echoing in my thoughts for a long time to come. And then suddenly, it wasn't just in my thoughts, it was in the room. And Isabella's voice wasn't fogged with sleep, it was loud and clear and cogent.

"Edward?" I glanced over at the bed, and was shocked to see Isabella staring back at me in confusion, her brow knit, her eyes wide.

I didn't think; I just reacted. Isabella's worn copy of _Pride and Prejudice _dropped from my hand and I was at the window and out of it in two single steps. I didn't even glance back, but I knew if I had, I would see Isabella's surprised face framed in the open window behind me.


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: **This is it! The very last chapter of Undisclosed Desires. Yes, I know. It's only four chapters long? Really? That's it?

Yes, I could write more. Do I want to write more? I'm not sure. I kind of like this story just the way it is. . .we see that Edward and Bella come to some sort of understanding, but not what happens afterwards. That, I think, is up to you. . .

* * *

**Chapter 4**

_"I want to reconcile the violence in your heart,_

_I want to recognize your beauty's not just a mask._

_I want to exorcise the demons from your past,_

_I want to satisfy the undisclosed desires in your heart." _

BPOV

The dream had been so incredibly real that for a moment, I'd almost believed that Edward was next to my bed, watching me sleep. As I blinked the sleep from my eyes, I didn't see him, but I'd been so incredibly sure that it had been his face I'd looked into.

I dropped back onto my pillow, letting my breathing reach its normal level again. And that was when I looked over at the window and saw it was open.

My heart rate accelerated back again and I gripped the bedsheets. I began to realize that seeing Edward hadn't been just a dream. He'd been here, in this very room, standing next to my bed, staring at me.

I'd been right before—there was _definitely _something going on with Edward Cullen.

I dreaded going to Biology, even more than I had before. I didn't think I could sit there, while that _freak _sat next to me, staring.

I wanted to tell him exactly what I thought of him, but I knew I wouldn't be able to get the words out. So instead of going, and sitting there, wordless and seething with fury and horror, I skipped class for the first time in my entire life and sat in the bathroom wondering what I should do about what I knew.

Nobody would believe me, of that I was certain. I'd been in Forks for less than a week but it was already fairly obvious that the entire Cullen family held the entire town in their thrall.

I couldn't deny that it had occurred to me, after catching Edward in my bedroom, late at night, that perhaps his convenient rescue the other night had also been planned. Maybe, I thought with growing anxiety, he was stalking me for _real_.

After school, I went straight to the police station, not lingering for a minute in the halls to give Edward a chance to find me so he could continue stalking his prey.

"Bella, what a surprise," Charlie said as I stood in the doorway of his tiny office. "Is something wrong?"

He knew me well enough to see the concern shadowing my eyes and creasing my forehead. I'd debated long and hard about confessing my suspicions about Edward, but I knew deep down, it was the right thing to do. Maybe Charlie's occupation would trump the Cullen propaganda.

"No. Well, yes. I saw something... _weird_... last night."

"Weird?" Charlie was toying with what looked like a taser on his desk. He'd told me a few nights ago that the police station had just purchased a few of them to test. Charlie said he liked the idea about having a weapon at their disposal that would merely incapacitate a suspect, instead of injuring them.

I sat down in the chair opposite the desk. "I saw Edward Cullen. I woke up and he was standing over my bed."

I couldn't have said anything that would have surprised Charlie more. He dropped the taser onto the desk and looked at me in shock. "Are you sure, Bells?"

I nodded. "I'm sure. And the window was open too—he escaped so fast that one second he was there, and the next, he was gone."

Charlie's brow furrowed and that's when I knew I'd lost him. "You're saying that Edward was standing over your bed and the next second, he was gone, out the window? So fast you couldn't see him move?"

"Yes," I said as firmly as I could. As if wasn't saying something completely ludicrous.

"Are you sure you weren't dreaming, Bells?"

"Yes," I repeated. "Absolutely sure. The window _was _open. I had to close it."

"You could have sleepwalked or something. I really doubt Edward would be able to sneak into your bedroom."

"There's that tree outside my window," I reminded him. "He could have climbed up the tree, opened the window—remember, the lock broke on it?—and slipped inside."

"Bella." Charlie said it patiently, interrupting me. "I'll look into fixing the lock, but I think it's better you don't go around accusing decent, nice boys of being Peeping Toms."

I crossed my arms over my chest, growing more annoyed. "I'm _not _making this up. I wasn't dreaming. It happened. And the night before, he just _happened _to be behind me as I drove up to the reservation, you know, when my truck slid into the ditch."

"You were really lucky he was there, Bells. He _helped _you." Charlie wasn't saying that I was being ungrateful and ungracious by accusing Edward of such things after he'd helped me, but I didn't necessarily believe that what he'd done excused him from creepiness.

I opened my mouth to argue, but before I could, a deputy stuck his head into the doorway and interrupted us. "Charlie, we've got a situation. Looks like a dead body."

I shuddered as Charlie rose to his feet, slipping his jacket on. _A dead body_. "I've got to go, Bells. I'll call you if I won't make it home for dinner."

I nodded as he left, the front door of the police station shutting behind him. I waited for a second, until I was sure the station was quiet—_empty_, I thought with a tiny smile. Standing up, I leaned over Charlie's desk, until I was face to face with what he'd left behind.

I picked it up and slid it under my jacket. Edward wouldn't know what hit him, I thought with a growing satisfaction, if he ever decided to bother me again.

Charlie came home late, exhausted from spending hours at the scene. "Wild animals," he'd said succinctly, when I'd asked him what or who had caused the death. "It was just a bum, passing through. Not expendable... necessarily... but not a member of the town."

I'd gone upstairs after heating up a bowl of chili for him. I needed to do research on how to operate the weapon I'd stolen from Charlie's office. I googled the model name and found the online manual in .pdf format. I downloaded it and paged through it quickly. It seemed pretty straightforward, though my nerves protested at the idea of shooting those projectiles into him—even if he was a creep. So I decided to use the other setting, where I could simply hold it against him to cause the involuntarily muscle spasms. No shooting required.

I went to bed at 11, and stared up at the ceiling, willing myself to stay awake so I could catch him if he snuck in again. It was hard enough for me to stay up late if I was reading or doing homework, but with the lights off, it was difficult. My eyelids kept drooping, and I gripped the hard plastic handle of the taser tightly.

Finally, when I thought I wouldn't be able to hold out any longer, I heard the distinctive screech of the window opening, and then a soft thunk as someone dropped to the ground in my bedroom. My heart rate accelerated, my throat grew dry, and I felt decidedly nauseous. Faced with the prospect, I wasn't sure I could actually do this.

I opened my eyes a little, but was startled to see that Edward wasn't even trying to look at me—instead, he was searching through a pile of books and papers on my desk. He wasn't looking for _me_, he was looking for something completely different.

Weird. As if he wasn't weird enough already.

He went through every book in my room methodically, clearly looking for one particular item. I wondered what it was, but he clearly didn't find it. I heard him grunt a little in frustration, and then turn towards the bed I was in. I barely closed my eyes in time, but I heard him come close, his feet making almost no noise on the carpeted floor as he walked towards me.

"Not talking tonight?" he asked, so low that I barely heard him. I was momentarily confused before I remembered my lamentable habit of talking during my sleep—he must have heard me the other night when he'd snuck in. And then it hit me. How many other times had he snuck into my room before the other night? Had he done it every night since we met? A surge of anger rushed through me. How _dare _he be so weird and creepy? Didn't he realize how _wrong _it was to do this?

I moved quickly, shoving the taser up and pressing the button hard. I felt it connect with something hard and my eyes flew upon and met his, but contrary to what the instruction manual had said would happen, there were no muscle spasms. I could feel the hum of the electricity in the weapon, but Edward, who stood gaping at me, didn't react at all.

My eyes widened and my brain froze. What the _fuck _was Edward Cullen?

* * *

_"Please me,_

_show me how it's done._

_Tease me,_

_you are the one."_

EPOV

I knew from the expression on Isabella's face that I was supposed to be doing something that I wasn't doing right now. She had a weapon of some kind jammed up into my stomach, but like every weapon, it was pretty useless against a vampire.

"What the _fuck _are you?" she whispered, her dark eyes huge in her suddenly paste-white face. She lowered the weapon and stared at me as if she expected me to slaughter her any second. Which, considering the situation she was in, wasn't probably too far from the truth.

I knew I had to tell her, but the words seemed stuck in my throat. How was it that Alice had not seen this? Had she seen it and chosen not to stop me? Surely, she couldn't have wanted me to divulge the one secret that we weren't allowed to _ever _reveal to a human.

"I... uh..." Usually it was Isabella who stammered when we were together, but tonight, with her staring at me with vengeful, angry, terrified eyes, I couldn't seem to form a sentence.

"Tell me or I'll scream." If I'd expected Isabella to fall apart upon discovering something that was obviously not a human in her bedroom, in the middle of the night, I was wrong. There seemed to be a stronger core to her that I was just discovering. Maybe, I thought with trepidation, she was more of a my equal than I'd ever thought.

Her threat, I knew, wasn't in vain, and I didn't want to have to explain to Chief Swan why his gun didn't work against me, so I reached out and covered her soft, warm mouth with my cold, marble-hard hand. She squirmed beneath me, her eyes shooting daggers at me.

"Promise that you won't say a word. I need to... tell you some things. Things that might seem... fantastic in nature. But I won't hurt you, Isabella, I swear."

She glared for a moment longer, her expression distrustful. Finally, she nodded reluctantly. I moved my hand, disappointed that I couldn't keep touching her. No doubt when I told her the truth, she'd never let me near her again. This would be the end of any possible relationship I'd have with Isabella Swan. She wasn't my miracle after all—only a chimera that evaporated as soon as she saw through me.

I sat down gingerly on the bed and she scooted up towards the headboard, as far away from me as she could get. And really, who could blame her?

"I'm... I'm not what you think I am. I'm not... human." Her eyes grew even wider as I spoke. "I'm a vampire."

"A vampire," she scoffed. "You expect me to believe that?"

I nodded. "I do. I know it's hard to accept, but I am. I don't eat or breathe or sleep. I don't eat human blood though—my family and I aren't vampires in the traditional sense. We choose to be as human as we can by only drinking animal blood."

Isabella still looked fairly unconvinced, and I discovered that I liked this side of her. She was much smarter than much of Forks realized. And it was incredibly unfortunate that just as I realized this fact, I was losing her forever.

"You want proof?" I asked, sure that that was what she was waiting for, and to my shock, she shook her head.

"No," Isabella said, "I believe you. I haven't understood what was so different about you, but it makes sense. The odd behavior, the way you look, the way you talk, the way you were able to push my truck out of the ditch."

I nodded, agreeing with her. No matter how we tried to fit in, some suspicious soul always saw through us.

"Now," she continued, "tell me what the hell you were looking for in my room."

I was afraid that she had seen me searching through her things, and now my fears were confirmed. I briefly considered lying, but then I realized why I was here at all. Alice hadn't said anything, though Isabella and I both had clearly planned out our own actions in advance. She had _seen _this conversation and knew it ended well. Maybe I should have some more faith in my sister and her ability to keep us safe.

That settled it; I would tell the truth and take the chips as they fell. "I wanted to find your journal and read it."

Isabella gaped now, more so than when she'd discovered that I wasn't human. "What?" she exclaimed. "Why?"

"Some vampires have special gifts. My sister Alice can see the future; Jasper can control people's emotions. And I can read thoughts. Every person, human and vampire, that I've ever met since I was changed—every single person except for you."

"Why not?" she seemed rather put out, as if she _wanted _me to read her thoughts. Not exactly a typical reaction—but then, I was beginning to realize that Isabella Swan was definitely not what I would consider a typical human girl.

I shrugged. "I don't know. Carlisle—my father—he wasn't sure. But that wasn't all that was special about you, Isabella. Not only could I not read your thoughts, but I also couldn't smell you."

Her nose wrinkled. "What do you mean?"

"Your blood," I confessed, "I couldn't smell your blood. You're... _protected... _from me. From my kind."

"Thus your interest in me," Isabella said matter-of-factly, as if this explained everything. I couldn't understand how she could so easily accept everything I was saying, as if this was routine and commonplace for her to have a vampire in her bedroom, confessing that she was blessed with protection against us.

"Now what does that have to do with my journal?" she asked, and I almost regretted how smart, how bright she was, when she wasn't busy blushing or stammering with nerves.

If I had been human, this was when I would have blushed. Confessing this to her was going to be one of the more difficult things I'd ever done, but when I'd told myself that I wanted to know what it was like to be in a relationship, to interact with a female that wasn't a relative, I'd signed up for this. Things didn't always go well in those situations. Sometimes you had to confess your deepest, darkest secrets. It just happened that I had a few more of those than the normal teenage boy.

"I wanted to know what it was like to... be with someone. To be with a girl. I've never had anyone before. Not in over a hundred years. I'm the only one of my family who isn't with someone and you were _safe_. Safer, anyway. And I wanted to know what you were thinking, what you wrote so much about."

Isabella was silent for a minute after I said this, clearly digesting what I'd confessed to her.

"So, you're saying that you... you... _liked _me because I wasn't a normal human. Because you couldn't hear my thoughts and because you couldn't smell... smell my blood."

I nodded. "You were quiet. Mysterious, even. And I didn't have to worry about killing you."

"It's hard then, to survive on animal blood?" She seemed genuinely curious and not nearly as terrified as I would have been, had I been in her shoes. Isabella Swan was, unarguably, one of the most interesting humans I'd ever met—regardless of the gifts she carried in her body.

"Yes. It's like having half a meal—you're not hungry, but you're also not necessarily satisfied."

"So that was why you talked to me." Her statement seemed like more of a question, so I nodded in agreement.

She leaned back against the headboard, her expression calculating. Not for the first time, I wondered desperately what she was thinking of so intently. It struck me that between the two of us, she definitely held all the power at this point. A novel feeling for a powerful and century-old vampire. Finally, she broke the silence.

"I need to... think. To process. And sleep. I'm tired."

Of all the things I'd expected Isabella to say, this was not even on the list. I'd expected her to demand that I leave, that I never contact her again—I'd half-expected her to say she was going to go to the police. But she said nothing like that. It was almost if she thought there was a decision to be made, which made no sense.

"I confess; I'm not sure I understand."

She set the taser on the bedside table, next to her copy of _Pride and Prejudice_. "I need to think about what you've said. If I could... do what you want me to do."

I gaped at her, shock running through me like ice water. "What I want you to do? I don't want you to do anything."

Her gaze narrowed. "I thought you were saying you wanted to be... involved. Because it was safe for you to be involved with me?"

"Well yes..." I said, thinking I would explain that I understood that now that she knew what I was, it was obviously out of the question—but instead of letting me finish, Isabella just interrupted me.

"And I need to think about that. Is that okay?"

I stood, my brain whirring with the sudden possibility that what I was, while still abhorrent to me, was somehow not abhorrent to Isabella. "Yes, of course. Naturally."

"I'll see you tomorrow then, at school." She was so contained, so ridiculously dignified, as she sat there in her bed, staring at the inhuman creature that I was. I was beginning to realize that the protection that Isabella carried within her wasn't the true prize that she could bring to me.

"Goodbye." I turned and gracefully leaped out the window, aware that she was staring at me the entire time. I hit the ground and turned back to see her in the open window, looking down at me, her hair falling around her face. I smiled up at her, and then turned towards home.

This time, I didn't have to lay in wait for Isabella—she lay in wait for me.

I'd just pulled into the parking lot the next morning when she approached the Volvo, her face determined and shadowed with sleeplessness. She clearly hadn't gotten much rest last night, but she'd obviously made her decision.

"Edward, good morning." She said it clearly, with no hint of embarrassment. I wondered if my confession had really helped eradicate her fear of talking to me. That seemed ludicrous, but perhaps, considering everything else that had happened, it was possible.

"Isabella, good morning."

"Do you have time to talk?"

I almost said I had first period, but she was so decisive, so sure this morning, that I just nodded. I could skip a class after all. It was only high school. Every other student skipped on a regular basis.

Isabella took off for the forest next to the school and I followed her, wondering what it was that she was going to say to me. Though I'd been sure she would tell me to leave her alone completely, I couldn't help feeling the thrill of anticipation that perhaps, her answer would be just as unexpected as the rest of her.

She stopped once we were hidden from sight and turned to face me. "I'm shy," she said. "Terrified of talking to men."

"I've noticed."

"But for some reason, I'm not scared of talking to you anymore. Is it because you're not a man? Is it because I know you could kill me at any moment and so the idea of me saying something stupid means quite a bit less? I'm honestly not sure what it is. But I feel weirdly... _comfortable _around you, since we talked last night."

This was indeed odd. I almost suggested that maybe such a revelation would be better addressed to a therapist, but I wisely shut my mouth and let her continue.

"You say I'm safe with you," she said. "I want proof."

"Proof?"

"Proof before I agree to... _this_." Isabella gestured at the space between us as she sat down on a log.

"What proof would you like?" I asked with trepidation.

She looked at me directly, with only a hint of a blush staining her skin. "I want you to kiss me."

I almost laughed. "Kiss you? _Kiss you?"_

Isabella frowned. "Is that not something you can do?"

"No, no, _no_." I ran my hand through my hair, feeling a weirdly nervous thrill for the first time in my entire life. "I can, I suppose."

"Okay then," Isabella said, so calmly, that I almost wanted a return of nervous, stammering Isabella. That person I understood.

I had never really thought about kissing Isabella before this moment, but now that she'd mentioned it, kissing was something I'd always been curious about. Why was it something that everyone wanted so desperately? Did magic happen when two pairs of lips met and touched? It seemed unlikely to me, but I wanted to do what I could to prove to Isabella that I wouldn't hurt her.

I took a step closer to her, and her eyes drifted close, her lashes fluttering over the buttermilk of her cheek. I smelled the strawberry and freesia from the first day I'd met her, and as we drifted closer, they grew stronger, until the scents wove around me, enthralling my senses.

I let myself touch her, gently, my hands just resting on her arms, as I closed my eyes and our lips brushed together. Be gentle, I ordered myself, convince her that you can be trusted to keep her safe. But I wasn't expecting the lightning bolt that shot through me at the mere taste of Isabella. Her lips were soft and warm and intoxicating.

She whimpered a little bit, and I leaned into her, our lips pressing together, until I thought if anything could start my heart beating again, it would be Isabella.

We broke apart, and I could feel the panting breaths that Isabella was taking. Clearly, she'd enjoyed the kiss just as much as I had. And, I thought with triumph, she was_ safe_. I'd done what I'd set out to do.

She looked up at me, and I was sure the surprise in her eyes mirrored my own. "Was that your first kiss?" she asked quietly and I nodded. "Mine too," she added. "I'm glad it was you."

"Me too, Isabella."

She smiled then, her small hand wrapping around my arm. As she did so, something new and completely unexpected blossomed inside me. "Then," Isabella said, "I suppose you'd better start calling me Bella."


End file.
